Nowadays, all schools have clear anti-bullying policies and a range of disciplinary procedures in place to manage bullying situations effectively.

So, how do different schools handle bullying and what should parents look for in a school's approach to the issue?

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At Wenona School in North Sydney, a girls' independent school with about 1000 students from Kindergarten to Year 12, principal Dr Briony Scott says parents should look beyond a school's stated policy to its actual practice.

"A school could have the perfect policy in place but if it doesn't work and it isn't followed then that's of no use. It's the execution that matters," she says.

Scott acknowledges that "conflict is going to happen" butWenona strives to create a safe community , she says. When a bullying incident does occur, staff are trained never to "turn a blind eye" and to intervene immediately.

"We make sure that there are genuine apologies and follow-up and not just some group hug and it's forgotten," Scott explains.

If the bullying behaviour is repeated, the students' families are brought into the discussion. "The bulk of the time the parents are fantastic," Scott says.

In these instances, Wenona helps students to develop a "pathway to resolution" so antagonists can learn how to establish a normal, cordial relationship with each other.

"We have never had to expel a girl for bullying and neither have we had bullying along racial lines," Scott says. "Sometimes the perpetrator is just terribly unhappy and we have to help her change her behaviour so she can stay in the school community."

At Georges River Grammar School near Bankstown, a co-educational school of 850 boys and girls from Kindergarten to year 12, principal Patrick McGing says students are encouraged to "stop, state and support" if they experience or observe something they think is wrong.

"This empowers students to act if they don't like some behaviour; speak out and support another student," he says. "It leads to conflict resolution and negotiation."

Technology-enabled bullying is not tolerated either and the school has set procedures for policing it , McGing says. "Our attitude to cyberbullying and sexting is that if it involves students from our school, it's the school's problem even if it doesn't happen in school hours."

From year 7, the school also educates parents to recognise cyberbullying and to report the behaviour to the school.

Meanwhile, St Vincent's College in Pott's Point, the oldest Catholic girls' school in Australia, depends on its house system involving girls from all years, to resolve hostilities before they develop into full-scale bullying says the school's director of welfare, Marina Ugonotti.

"In the house environment, new girls learn about how our values look and feel and often if they need to talk about an issue, they turn to an older girl - informally in the first instance - who can help them with issues."

If the problem persists, the college also has a structured "no tolerance" approach to bullying, where a teacher or head of house will deal with the situation.

"We often make a mediation plan together to try to repair the relationship using some sort of restorative justice," Ugonotti says.

St Vincent's method gets a ringing endorsement from Rebecca Hugonnet. Her daughter, Verity Walsh, who is now in year 11, was involved in a bullying incident last year.

"I approached Marina Ugonotti. She took it seriously, got all the facts, and the girls apologised to Verity," Hugonnet says. "The girls realised quickly they had done the wrong thing and in no time it was all sorted out. I was very happy with the result and that's because of the culture of the school. They deal with incidents immediately."

With only 100 girls in Verity's year, the school's intimate environment, creates a close-knit community, Hugonnet says, which produces "individual and independent women" who stand up for themselves.